When bowhunters miss shots from tree stands, especially shots that are well within their effective shooting range, they usually commit one or more of several deadly shooting sins. In this month’s column, I’m going to expose these common faults and tell you how to avoid them.

APPROACH THE TARGET FROM BELOW

Many bowhunters raise their bow arm high in the air when they draw their bow and then they lower it until their sight pins are on the animal. If they are trigger-happy, the arrow is gone as soon as they see brown beyond the pins. The obvious outcome of such an approach is a high hit.

Learn to draw your bow without raising your arm to the sky. It is much better to get into the proper shooting position before the animal is even close, then point your bow arm straight at the animal as you draw back, eliminating any unnecessary game spooking movement. If you can’t do this, you are probably shooting too much draw weight.

Finally, if buck fever and a quick trigger finger plague you, approach the vitals from below the animal. This will insure that when you see brown beyond your pin you are looking at something that will result in a quick kill rather than back strap.

MAINTAIN YOUR ANGLES

I hope you practiced all summer by shooting with your bow arm at a 90-degree angle to your upper body. Even when shooting from a tree stand you need to try to maintain this important relationship. Bend fully at the waist to create the downward shot angle; don’t just drop your bow arm. Maintaining correct body angles will also keep your eye in the proper alignment with your sight pins so you will hit what you are aiming at.

USE THE CORRECT DISTANCE

The distance from your perch in the tree to the animal is farther than the distance from the base of the tree to the animal. Whichever distance you use, make sure you use it consistently. If you practice and sight-in by taking range readings straight to the target from your tree stand, make sure you do the same thing when hunting.

USE A PEEP SIGHT

The relationship between your eye, anchor point and sight pin has to remain constant regardless of awkward or unfamiliar shooting positions. If you aren’t practicing by the hour from tree stands (and few bowhunters are) you are probably inconsistent in this department. A peep sight will help restore this critical consistency. Choose one with a large opening to maximize the amount of light that reaches your eye in low visibility situations.

Attention to these four aspects of shooting form will help eliminate the most common miss in tree stand hunting.